On 21 July on request of Georgia, a special session of the UN Security Council was held attended by representatives of Austria, Azerbaijan, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Japan, Latvia, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, Spain, Israel, Slovakia and Denmark.

Members of the Security Council reviewed the act of military aggression carried out against Georgia by the Russian Federation on 8 July 2008 – intrusion of Russian military aircraft into Georgian airspace. On 10 July 2008 the Russian side openly admitted to having committed this act, which caused the international community’s extreme concern and attracted international censure.

Georgia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Irakli Alasania attended and addressed the special session of the Security Council.

Convened in a closed-door session the Security Council did not adopt any concrete document. It needs to be underlined that despite the Russian side’s attempts to shift attention to the situation in the conflict regions, the focus of the session kept centred on the confrontation between the two sovereign states – Georgia and Russia. The issues related to the conflicts on the territory of Georgia were considered in this very context. A majority of the Security Council’s permanent and non-permanent members fully shared the Georgian side’s positions.

Following the session representatives of the United States, France (current EU Presidency) and Russia’s Permanent Representatives to UN made statements for the press. Ambassadors of the United States and France expressed their full support for Georgia’s territorial integrity and reaffirmed that the provocative act committed by the Russian Federation represents a gross violation of Georgia’s sovereignty and the norms of international law. Thus it was once again recognized that the Russian Federation cannot be an unbiased mediator in the conflict resolution process.

The US and French representatives confirmed the inadmissibility of such acts and called on the Russian side to refrain from provocative practices in the future.

The result of the special session of the UN Security Council once again indicates clearly that Russia’s policy aimed at further escalation of the already complicated situation in the region is totally unacceptable to the international community.

It should be made clear for the Russian side that any attempt directed against Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is doomed to failure, undermines the peace process aimed at resolution of the conflicts in Georgia and poses a direct threat to the situation in the Caucasus region.

22 July 2008

Press and Information Department